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Underground > Comic Books >

Wolverine - Why are his antics acceptable?

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Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

23:04 / 21.11.05

Teenage girls love that stuff.

01:00 / 22.11.05

Dammit, I'm moving to England!

Okay, ew. No I'm not.

01:36 / 22.11.05

Wasn't there a 'New Yorker' piece, recently, about comics, where the author gets a bit weirded out by the fact that romancy comics aimed at teenage girls might be a bit, er, senuous and kinky? That - gasp shudder horror and panic - teenage girls might have an enthusiasm or interest in erotic overtones is kinda an odd paranoia, innit? Or, when old beardy het fellows get worked up over that, is it the 'porn is whatever excites the judge' thing going on?
To connect to proper topic: I like the short, bulky Wolverine but I think he's better served as a marketing tool and character, as short, lithe and well-proportioned, with a pretty face and good hair that goes loose and wild in just the right way. Wolverine - not doing anything but just standing around - should be sexy and intriguing.
Then he can kill a shitload of people and we'll all either (a) forgive him as soon as he grins and winks, or (b) have proper shock and dismay at his horrible mutilating actions.

02:09 / 22.11.05

Why does Wolverine want to be an Avenger? And Spidey?

Wolverine, I'm guessing, wants to make up for some of the terible things that Mark Millar made him do.

Spiderman's a wanker.

03:12 / 22.11.05

Spidey's become an Avenger because Bendis wants to control every decent character in the universe and make them all talk the exact same way. And Bendis is the wanker, not Spidey.

07:41 / 22.11.05

You know, I like a good chunk of Bendis's work, but I've gotta agree with this...

...every decent character in the universe and make them all talk the exact same way

That really is his greatest sin.

Why are Wolverine's antics acceptable? Well, kind old Mark Millar was nice enough to have Wolvey only kill guys with *green blood* once he was back on the side of the angels. And we all know that people with green blood aren't really people. Also, in case we were in any doubt as to the nobleness of his actions, Millar informed us, through the mouth of Gorgon, that the baddies he killed "wanted to die". They're so evil, so twisted and mental and sub-human that they wanted to die.

Basically Wolverine's a good bloke, and why wouldn't the rest of the Avengers want to hang out with a good bloke (with WRIST KNIVES).

The Natural Way

11:17 / 22.11.05

and make them, all talk in the exact same way

And what an annoying way to speak that is. Jesus, I HATE Bendis dialogue - all the little asides, toing and froing across entire bloody pages (sometimes two), speaking in brackets.... AaarGghgh! Actually, loads of u already know this about me and I shouldn't derail the thread any longer, but....NnnNnNngh!

11:28 / 22.11.05

Is Peter Parker Jewish, or is this just how Bendis has chosen to portray him, and if he is, is it just a case of Bendis being heavy-handed about it so that it only seems to be such a big part of his character, and is he just becoming a parody? I'm confused, I don't read much Marvel, so what is going here?

Oh and in staying with the thread - Cap or Iron Man or someone gave a big speach about how times have changed and that they need someone willing to do the dirty when called upon, so Wolverine was approached. Punisher is just unlucky that he's a convicted criminal I guess.

How many heroes have been convicted?

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:42 / 22.11.05

White Tiger was convicted of trying to steal a VCR.. Gambit was put on trial, but that was in the Antartic, by Eric the Red (who was secretly Magneto all along), so probably doesn't count. Magneto was tried and acquitted by the UN, but that was a while ago and he's gone bad/good/bag/good since.

As for Spider-Man... Ultimate Peter Parker may be Jewish, but I don't think New Avengers Parker is. Is there anything apart from him saying "oy" that makes you think he's being portrayed as such?

12:55 / 22.11.05

I'm sure I got a bit of dialogue in my head that played on Jewish stand up comedy - I'll flick through the New Avengers issues I have and drag it out.

ONLY NICE THINGS

13:34 / 22.11.05

That rings a bell - if you mean Catskills stand-up of the "here all week, enjoy the veal" variety. It's not exaclty Jewmageddon, though... the Yiddish is a tic of Bendis' writing - nobody is safe from it, especially in a New York setting.

13:41 / 22.11.05

Also, Spidey is a weisenheim (some Yiddish for you) and always will be. If he uses stand-up rhetoric and formulae, I wouldn't presume it's Jewish. It might just be that the iconic stand up routine came from Jewish people. And on note, why is Spidey still schlepping around with the Avengers? Why doesn't he and Daredevil form their own Mighty Bendis Talkers and go fight random obscure villains?

14:39 / 22.11.05

Wolverine kills people because he has 'berserker rages' iirc. Can't stop himself. That's the excuse; his brain was fucked w/ by Dept. H and the Weapon X programme. What would you do?

rabideyemovement

14:54 / 22.11.05

Exactly. The Weapon X Dept. turned him into a killer, so any murders are on their hands. We see Wolverine as trying to fight his government-sponsored mind control programming, and hence is not truly responsible for slicing tens of thousands of people into tiny bits. He's like a short, hairy, loveable Sirhan Sirhan who's trying so hard to reform, that noone holds him accountable for his stabby binges.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:57 / 22.11.05

Weisenheimer, I believe. Weisenheim would be where the Weisenheimers came from.

ONLY NICE THINGS

15:02 / 22.11.05

But, but... if the Weapon X programme turned him into a beserker, wouldn't his best course of action be to avoid situations in which he was likely to encounter undue amounts of stress? If I claim that I become murderous in the face of gefilte fish, and then insist on accompanying my chums on their regular jaunts to the deli, I ma not behaving responsibly. Certainly I am not behaving heroically. This may all tend back to Charles Xavier being a bastard...

15:13 / 22.11.05

Ethics aside it's hardly a defence that would stand up in a court of law.
"Not guilty your honour, on grounds that the government messed with my brain, that's why I went mad and stabbed all those people"

15:18 / 22.11.05

What strikes me is the 'don't use your claws on nonpowered folk' clause. The hell? There was an issue, back about eight years now, where some guy's walloping on his kids and wife, and Wolvie's in a bad mood, possibly just recently having been hit by a truck, with no adamantium, and he stumbles onto the guy and just about eviscerates him when the X-Men put a stop to it. They can't get involved - he can't get involved - and I think the guy even takes another swipe at his wife while they're talking.
Morally? If it was a normal human it'd be okeh to go stop the violence, but we, as mutants, can't interfere with humans beating on humans unless they put on a costume? The hell?
And then we come to y'know Hellfire Club mercenaries or Hydra agents... They can pack these huge fucking rifles bigger than they are, and shoot at Wolverine, but he's a bad man if he pops his claws and goes to town? Dude's under attack and it's not ethical for him to hit back with something more efficient than a fist, like, oh, fist-knives?
That's two things that kill too many superhero stories for me:
(a) No interfering in 'real life situations' that are real and not like the fictional ones even though we live in a fictional reality where Sentinels are just as real as a mugging down the street or some guy smacking his three-year-old kid 'til his eye pops out of the socket.
(b)No using powers in a fight or no using full power... like it's sensible in any way to find a dangerous situation, where you and possibly others will be at risk, and not do your damnedest to get it over with as quickly and efficiently as possible. This often takes the form of someone hitting someone else forty-seven times lightly, because if they hit them once, hard, they'd knock them into a coma and could go shut off the deathray that's currently exploding the population of Israel while they trade deliberately weak punches.

I'm not saying supeheroes should act always in a well-thought-out, reasonable manner, but that they're actions and decisions should at least make a pretense at making some sense, from a characterization standpoint if nothing else.

BTW, nigh onto threadrot, but does anyone know who did the Batman story where he punks out a Dagwood-a-like? For being a shitty father?

15:30 / 22.11.05

I think only four people've ever really nailed the severity of how he was fucked with, actually.
Larry Hama was writing glib boys adventure tales, but there was a seedy tinge and panic underlining a lot of his government-brainwashing/maybe-even-Xavier-brainwashing bits.
Warren Ellis, in his What If?-styled anti-Marvels, had that wonderful "show'im your claws, little freak, and I'll give you a beer." Just a pathetic and futile deathmachine with skeletal defects.
Brian Bendis had that repetition/emphasis thing going on, with Wolvie and rape, but it worked. That's the bulk of his life there, in one word, but only when it's repeated over and over again. So much, you want to laugh because it seems too much, and then you stop and reflect for a second, and... shit.
Grant Morrison had Wolverine just pretty much get over it. It happened, he wasn't going to let it make him into a perpetually shitty and evil person. The end. Stitch that, bub!
I'm surprised with Claremont's BDSM tendencies, he didn't explore this element of a character he's largely responsible for, more viscerally.

What's great about the 'samurai clause' for random mass killing, is that, really... even in Japan, today, in mordern Marvel-verse Japan, are we to believe that kind of excuse would fly? It's a goofy excuse on par with a kill-krazy kandy-kolored Rebel inna Ironman suit and cowboy hat.

19:59 / 22.11.05

Yeah, but Marvel's Japan is stuck in the dark ages, still puts things on Monster Island and is pretty much feudal in its make-up. What you said before about heroes not interferring was what made the Punisher Daredevil story from the eighties about PCP abuse great - the Punisher was trying to smack down on them, Daredevil was approaching the whole thing like a hero, it was just a great juxtoposition - one bit where Daredevil stumbles on Punisher beating someone up to near death for information. I thought Wolverine's initial approach to groups was that it helped him to focus his human side, and Xaviar offered to help keep him calm or something?

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:31 / 22.11.05

He also promised to search for a cure for Rogue's inability to touch. The man is a monster.

22:56 / 22.11.05

Hey, the guy's in pretty much every Marvel book. He's BUSY, alright?

00:07 / 23.11.05

Xavier's in "pretty much every Marvel book" right now? Huh?
Xavier isn't here right now. He's busy being a little girl.
See: 'House of M' and follow-ups for confirmation.
And doesn't Rogue have Znoxx Chamber priveliges that allow her some touchyfeely time? Could be worse, I mean, she could be stuck wearing a ruby crystal bodycondom at all times.
Xavier's therapeutic treatment of Wolverine consisted primarily of throwing him into videogame simualations of combat and babbling at him. Then blaming the problems of the presence or lack of adamantium, depending on the day and on how much Xavier was paying attention.

00:09 / 23.11.05

Sorry, I thought Haus was referring to our good fren Wolverine, not Xavier.

02:33 / 23.11.05

If Xavier is generally considered in the top five most powerful human telepaths in the universe, why can't he reach into Logan's brain and tamper? Why is it taking thirty years for Wolverine to realize his real first name (which is garbage)? Why can't Xavier fucking do something other than play pop psychologist (which amounts to the writer reading pop psychology or Steven Pinker before writing)

03:24 / 23.11.05

Maybe adamantium is the metal in all those telepathy-proofed helmets?
I think the idea was that, from Wolverine's fucked-up perspective, all the memories were equally valid, equally real. So there was no way of sorting out, without outside corroboration, what was objectively real and not merely real for him. Like dealing with someone legitimately insane and delusional. Those delusions don't seem real, hallucinations don't seem anything, but are, from their perspective, real.
So Xavier, short of kidnapping everyone from Wolvie's past and forcing them to confess in detail, can't do much. And many people from Logan's past, like, say, Maverick or Sabretooth or Silver Fox... would have just as suspect memories, themselves.

06:17 / 23.11.05

If Xavier is generally considered in the top five most powerful human telepaths in the universe, why can't he reach into Logan's brain and tamper?

Because the human mind is like a beehive, but only with less bees and um, all that. Didn't you watch the movie? I thought it was explained so thoroughly.

07:24 / 23.11.05

benny said
>Yeah, but Marvel's Japan is stuck in the dark ages, still >puts things on Monster Island

what the hell else do you suggest they do with mothra and godzilla? rehabilitiate them into society? give them citizenship and minority rights to stomp all over tokyo AGAIN? no way bub, monster island, it's the only language they understand.

07:32 / 23.11.05

Perhaps Wolverine should be put on Monster Island as well?

08:17 / 23.11.05

but then the bleeding heart liberals will be all 'oooh he's threatening their rights as monsters to go around stomping things' and some fancy lawyers will make a killing from suiing everyone. i tell you, monsters these days have more rights than honest citizens.

mind you wolvie on monster island would make a great 6 issue mini-series with holgram monster sleeves and die cut variant covers.

rabideyemovement

15:59 / 23.11.05

Why in the world would Xavier tamper with Wolverine's mind. Wolverine functions just like Xavier needs him to. He kills when it needs to be done. I'm sure that's why the bastard recruited him. All that programming could have been easily wiped away by Prof X, but for the fact that it actually suits his needs rather well.

16:32 / 27.11.05

The thing to remember about Wolverine, and I really do understand Wolvie-hate as a backlash against incessant Wolvie-hype, is that he is basically a perfect superhero character. He looks completely utterly awesome (and makes narrative sense) whether he's fighting a thousand ninjas, a giant robot, or a big-ass fucking bear. He looks badass (and makes narrative sense...to a degree) in piss-yellow Spandex or a Hard Man leather jacket. You can do absolutely anything you want with Wolverine, as long as it involves the possibility (not even necessarily the reality) of killing someone else. That's all a Wolverine story requires. Plus for a while he had an eyepatch and a Miami Vice blazer and even THAT didn't make him suck. Way to go, Wolverine.

16:42 / 27.11.05

I think the idea was that, from Wolverine's fucked-up perspective, all the memories were equally valid, equally real.

I'm not sure if this was ever mentioned in an actual comic, but Wolverine's amnesia is probably the result of massive brain damage. Say his head is set on fire and his brain cooks, or say he gets all oxygen deprived. He can heal the nerve tissues, but they'll be new nerve tissues and won't hold any memories. Really, he ought to have all kinds of wacky neuropsychiatric problems.

17:21 / 27.11.05

Wolverine can also have an antagonistic relationship with anyone or anything, a romantic relationship with anyone or anything, and a sexual, ambivalent, or familial relationship to just about anyone or anything... and have it make some sort of narrative/character-based sense. You can make him an actual wolverine, you can have him and Jean Grey snipping at each other, then getting sweaty behind the school, or Logan, Gambit, and Pete Wisdom writhing naked in a cheap hotel while Mystique videotapes it. He can try and peel Iron Man one day and go drinking with him the next. Get in vigorous arguments with inanimate objects, like tomatoes or a jukebox. He can use "I can smell you" to pick up Domino, insult Nick Fury, or try and punk Spiderwoman and the Black Widow into restraining themselves until they can soundproof AND SCENT-PROOF an room.
There's no position that can't really be defended, narratively, with Wolverine. That Larsen thing (I liked Erik Larsen's Wolverine) where he went toe-to-toe with Galactus? If he did win, how many of us would actually be all that surprised? If he starts wearing a miniskirt and keyhole blouse with sequins, surely, we'll all be - not turned away - but awaiting an answer.
Is there anything you can do with the Wolverine concept, that just kills the possibility of story or reason? Dude grew himself back from a drop of blood. Hell, he makes a better dad for Nightcrawler than The Devil (TM) ever did, and that corroborates Mystique's "I wen to the trouble of getting you a furry father."

17:31 / 27.11.05

I never really thought about it quite that way before, but I think tickspeak and daytripper are right - you can do pretty much anything from any angle with Logan.

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